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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29320602">Monsters with Reasons</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunshinemellow/pseuds/sunshinemellow'>sunshinemellow</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Naruto AU Week 2021 [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Naruto</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Inspired by Beowulf, M/M, Romance</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 10:00:03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,358</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29320602</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunshinemellow/pseuds/sunshinemellow</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>I’ve been called a monster, too,” Naruto said, ignoring the man’s question. “I want to know why you did it. I won’t kill you until I know why you did it.”</p><p>Naruto AU Week 2021 | Day 2: Mythology &amp; Folktales</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Uchiha Sasuke/Uzumaki Naruto</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Naruto AU Week 2021 [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2153736</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>44</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Naruto AU Week 2021</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Monsters with Reasons</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>The monster relished his savage war</em>
</p><p>
  <em>On the Danes, keeping the bloody feud</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Alive, seeking no peace, offering</em>
</p><p>
  <em>No truce, accepting no settlement, no price</em>
</p><p>
  <em>In gold or land, and paying the living</em>
</p><p>
  <em>For one crime only with another. No one</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Waited for reparation from his plundering claws:</em>
</p><p>
  <em>That shadow of death hunted in the darkness,</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Stalked Hrothgar's warriors.</em>
</p><p>-<em>Beowulf </em>151-160</p><p> </p><hr/><p>
  
</p><p>When Naruto came to fight the monster, he had a feeling that someone was lying to him.  </p><p>The abandoned hall, Heorot, stood alone on the hill. Its mottled grey stones blended into the wild tangles of the moorland grasses and a faint mist half-shrouded the looming turrets from sight. It was as though the primordial force that had swarmed over the defenses the previous night had been governed by nature itself. Naruto wondered, not for the first time, if blood must always be paid for with blood.</p><p>“Thank you for coming,” said the man named Danzo as he fingered the long hilt of a sword that looked far too heavy for him. “We want to return to Heorot, but the monster has kept us at bay. Each night I send warriors to wait in the main hall to slay it, and each night they fail to return.”</p><p>Naruto had already been told this, but there was something he had not been told. “Why did the monster attack? What was done to provoke it?”</p><p>Danzo stared at him with cold eyes, something churning in their in inscrutable depths. “Provoke it? Why would we ever want to provoke such attacks on our home?”</p><p>Naruto frowned. If there was anything he had learned in his training with Jiraiya, it was that things were done for a reason. Silly reasons, cruel reasons, unforgivable reasons—but reasons nonetheless.</p><p>“But then why would the monster come down from its lair? Why would it bother?”</p><p>Danzo gave him an indulgent smile that did not reach his eyes. “It is a testament to your goodness, young warrior, that you do not understand bloodshed for bloodshed’s sake.”</p><p>Naruto was used to being patronized—it came with being a young person who was sought out to solve the problems of older people. Yet this time, he was being asked to kill an enemy that he truly knew nothing about. Naruto had been used as a pawn easily enough when he was younger, but he no longer felt as willing to trust the motives of those in power.</p><p>Naruto had learned there were those in power, and those with power. He was the latter, and he was going to start acting like it.</p><p>“I will need a reason if you ask this of me,” Naruto said with a smile that had only the barest hint of an edge. “I consider that fair.”</p><p>Danzo’s face pinched as though he were unused to his weapons talking back to him. Tsunade had warned Naruto that Danzo would be difficult to maneuver around and that he was not to be trusted, but Naruto was determined to come back having proven that he could handle the challenge. Subtlety was never his strong suit but as he eyed the militaristic camp they were speaking in, watching the closed and sharp faces of the men who worked around them, Naruto had a feeling that there was more here than what met the eye.  </p><p>“Very well,” Danzo said, his voice tighter than it had been before. “Our theory is that the monster heard the sounds of our hall from its swamp and was drawn here by jealous fury.”</p><p>Naruto stared. He understood jealousy—had felt it all his life (<em>had tried not to feel it all his life</em>)—and he knew from his own experience that anything labeled a <em>jealous monster</em> was probably just a being that had been crowded into a corner and forced to lash out. After all, for all the light Naruto felt welling in his chest when he was able to protect the ones he loved, it never came without the shadows cast by those who watched him do it and called him <em>monster</em>.</p><p>He gritted his teeth and smiled Danzo, deciding he would have to get most of his answers elsewhere. “And what does this monster look like? Is it sentient?”</p><p>Danzo’s eyes narrowed. “You ask many questions for one so renowned. Are you concerned you will be unable to best it?”</p><p>Naruto felt the stirrings of anger but didn’t rise to the bait as he once would have. “I just want to know what you consider monstrous.”</p><p>Danzo watched Naruto carefully. “He killed men in my hall and left them dismembered. Is that not monstrous enough?”</p><p>Naruto raised golden brows. “He?”</p><p>Danzo frowned, realizing his slip. “It,” he corrected.</p><p>“Right,” Naruto said, glancing back up at the hall consumed by mist. “I will meet him in battle tonight. Rest assured that your men will be able to return tomorrow morning.”</p><p>Naruto’s choice to use <em>he </em>rather than <em>it </em>was not lost on Danzo. He inclined his head and then swept away. Naruto was left to start trudging up the winding trail alone, wondering what he would find when he reached the vague shape looming in the darkness.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>He heard the heavy doors to the banquet hall groan as they had when he had shoved them open himself several hours ago. Naruto straightened and stood from the wooden bench he had been waiting on. His eyes fixed on the doors as he half wondered if something would rush him.</p><p>But then a man slid through them.</p><p>He had wild black hair, spiked and swept in a million different directions from the wind that had started howling with the onset of evening. His skin was startlingly and harshly pale. He wore the simple linens that all warriors possessed, though he wore no armor over them. His eyes fixed on Naruto, and Naruto felt his breath catch in his throat. The man’s eyes were red—a furious, crimson, <em>striking </em>red.</p><p>“Who are you?” Naruto asked, his breath caught in his chest.</p><p>The man just stared as he approached slowly, warily. Naruto clearly had not been what he was expecting to find. Then a slow and cruel smile curled across his lips. “I am the monster. You must have been told what I was if you were sent here to kill me.”</p><p>“I was told you would be here. I wasn’t told who you were.”</p><p>Something flickered across the man’s face at the word <em>who</em>, though it was gone in an instant behind the same curled smile of a predator. “I am the one who murdered the people who waited here for me last night. And who are you?”</p><p>“I’ve been called a monster, too,” Naruto said, ignoring the man’s question. “I want to know why you did it. I won’t kill you until I know why you did it.”</p><p>The smile dropped from the man’s face only to be replaced by something that looked like anger. His lips twisted into a furious scowl. “You think you know what it’s like to be a monster? You think you can kill me after all the others failed?”</p><p>Naruto just watched him steadily, ignoring his odd feeling of disappointment when the man came to a halt ten feet away from him. “I know I can kill you,” Naruto said. “But I don’t want to. And I’m beginning to think I don’t have a reason to.”</p><p>Fury blazed in the crimson eyes. “And why, exactly, do you presume to know <em>anything </em>about me?”</p><p>Naruto stared, wondering how honest he should be. “Because when I look at you, I see pain just like mine. You were labeled a monster because they feared you—”</p><p>He snarled. “You know nothing of my pain. Absolutely <em>nothing</em>.”</p><p>Something fragile in Naruto’s chest clenched. He felt as though his darker impulses had been torn from his body and manifested in the man across from him. He didn’t know why, but part of him <em>ached </em>to be rejoined with the pieces that had been torn away. He wanted them back—he wanted this man to understand. Neither of them needed to be monsters, even if people were determined to believe that they were.</p><p>“What is your name,” he asked softly.</p><p>The crimson eyes flashed again. “My name is Sasuke,” he said. “And I’m going to kill you.”</p><p>Naruto just smiled and shook his head. “I don’t think you will. I don’t think I’m one of the people you have a reason to kill, and I can tell you have a reason for why you’re killing. You’re clinging to it so tightly that it is destroying you.”  </p><p>The anger in Sasuke’s face flushed with something almost like pain—like the agony of having been seen and understood after so long of having neither—but then it was gone again behind the wall of fury. “I do not need a reason to kill you,” he said. “No more than you need a reason to kill me.”</p><p>“We all need reasons for the things we do.”</p><p>Turmoil flitted across Sasuke’s face again, and somehow Naruto had the feeling that they had been here before. That this man, ruffled with wind and jagged with edges that were all fury and venom, had been someone he had known in some ancient piece of his consciousness.</p><p>“I have a reason to kill,” Sasuke said quietly. “But I did not need one. None of us need one.” There was a long pause as Naruto waited, knowing Sasuke hadn’t quite finished. “My family was killed,” he finally said in a hoarse voice. “For no reason. No reason at all.”</p><p>Something in Naruto pulsed with a fierce ache. This man was no monster. He was simply desperate for what he had lost. “Let me help you,” Naruto said. “You don’t have to stay here.”</p><p>Sasuke’s face hardened, brittle and snarling once again. “You understand nothing of what I have to do—nothing at all.”</p><p>“Let me help you,” Naruto repeated.</p><p>An anger so potent that it morphed into fear rushed through Sasuke’s face. And then he lunged and they were fighting and clawing at one another, dancing together and springing apart. Naruto had never fought someone so fast—someone who blurred into shadows and light and left a singing like birds in his wake.</p><p>Naruto felt the singe of electricity crackle past him and felt the warmth of his own power in his palm as he bore back against Sasuke. It was exhilarating to face an opponent that made him <em>move</em>, that pushed the limits of his strength. He felt a wild grin forming on his face at the simple pleasure of the challenge, saw the anger and grudging respect in Sasuke’s eyes as they decimated the room around them.</p><p>He felt beams falling in the periphery of his awareness, heard craters rocking through the walls behind him, but nothing mattered except the thrill of the dance. They moved like they had been made to circle one another—like they had been made to move together and create this frenzy of chaos and order all at once.</p><p>Naruto began to realize the world was changing around them. The darkness was giving way to the burnt orange and lilac of sunrise, and the air was cool and fresh. The hall, Heorot, made of stone to loom in darkness, was no more. It had been laid bare around them, still smoking with the reek of electricity and raw energy.</p><p>Sasuke seemed to have the same realization Naruto did as he stilled for the first time in hours. They stared at each other across the expanse of charred earth. Naruto felt his heaving breath rattling in his chest.</p><p>“We destroyed it,” Sasuke said quietly. “I—we destroyed it.”</p><p>Naruto took in a gasp of air and straightened, patches of his skin still smarting with pain from close calls. “Is that what you wanted,” he managed, his chest heaving from exertion. “Is this enough?”</p><p>Sasuke had not told him what had happened to his family, but Naruto was beginning to believe it had a great deal to do with the cold and dispassionate look in Danzo’s eyes as he called another man a monster. The men in the makeshift settlement had not been townspeople or the regular kinds of people who filled a hall. They had been sharper, angrier, and Naruto hadn’t understood why until he had seen the fierce pleasure Sasuke took in destroying their home.</p><p>Naruto had the distinct feeling he had been sent to slay the wrong monster.</p><p>He watched as Sasuke crumpled to his knees, a powerful kind of fury and relief flickering in his eyes. Naruto drew closer, his body aching from the strain of their fight. Naruto had said that he thought he could kill this man when he arrived, but he was realizing it was utterly untrue. Not for any lack of strength—but how would he live again in the world, knowing he had met someone who could match him, someone who could mirror him, and that he had lost him?</p><p>He kneeled down in the mud and debris beside Sasuke as their breathing created mingled clouds of fog. Naruto watched the shuddering of his shoulders begin to settle.</p><p>“This place,” Sasuke finally said. “This place was the death of my family. And now it’s gone.” His eyes flicked up almost unwillingly to Naruto. “I never thought I could lay it to shreds like this, stone by stone.”</p><p>Naruto cracked a small, tentative smile. “I wouldn’t have thought I could do it either. It seems we needed each other’s help.”</p><p>Sasuke just stared, wide dark eyes set in an unbelieving face. “I killed those men. And I’m going to finish killing them. I’m not going to rest—”</p><p>“I have been called monster, too,” Naruto said. “But what I was made into—there was a reason for it. I exist this way for a reason.” Sasuke’s eyes burned and Naruto reached out a tentative hand. He felt like some of this man’s electricity had rushed through his veins when it settled against his shoulder. “Can you tell me your reason?”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>this was my first foray into writing naruto x sasuke! maybe i'll add a little bit to this later with their happy ending + more obvious romance! thank you for reading!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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